NATO Report Threatens To ‘persecute’ Anonymous

NATO leaders have been warned that WikiLeaks-loving ‘hacktivist’ collective Anonymous could pose a threat to member states’ security, following recent attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce and defence contractor HBGary – and promise to ‘persecute’ its members.

In a toughly-worded draft report to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, General Rapporteur Lord Jopling claims that the loose-knit, leaderless group is “becoming more and more sophisticated”, and “could potentially hack into sensitive government, military, and corporate files”.

The group demonstrated its capabilities in February, says the report, when it hacked into US-based defence contractor HBGary. Documents stolen in the attack lifted the lid on the US military’s plans to use social network surveillance software, code-named ‘Metal Gear’ by the online hive-mind, which could control an army of fake profiles, collecting data from disparate sites and piecing together an individual’s identity by analysing linguistic traits and other details.

Describing the rise of the group from its beginnings on internet picture message board 4chan, via campaigns against the Church of Scientology and, more recently, in support of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, the report continues: “Today, the ad hoc international group of hackers and activists is said to have thousands of operatives and has no set rules or membership.”

The report goes on to lay out a stark warning to the group’s nameless participants:

“It remains to be seen how much time Anonymous has for pursuing such paths. The longer these attacks persist the more likely countermeasures will be developed, implemented, the groups will be infiltrated and perpetrators persecuted.”

Anonymous can’t be stopped since they don’t have any leaders, they are fueled only by a set of ideas and to quote one of their heroes “Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof. “ The US is yet again trying to fight a faceless enemy and we all know how the last two wars are going (War on Terror, War on Drugs).

Anonymous will not disappear and the more you put them in the news and talk about them, the more people are going to join up.

And lastly to clarify my stand here. I am not part of Anonymous and do not agree with how they fight, We do however share the same goal, an open and free society.